1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to external housings for use in connection with personal computers. The personal computer housing has particular utility in connection with providing computers and computer systems for children.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of personal computers has become a way of life in many homes. Young children are becoming quite proficient with computers. However, there is the potential to increase children""s interest in computers considerably by providing hardware that is more child-friendly. This invention provides computers that have an outward appearance of a toy or other familiar object rather than just a box or tower.
Of course, the use of personal computers is known in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,442 to Toor discloses a personal computer and chassis having interchangeable trim plates for use in configuring the computer as a horizontal or a tower model. However, the Toor ""442 patent does not provide a computer that has various toy-shaped outer housings installed over a computer mainframe and has a common interface built into both the mainframe and the housing component.
U.S. Design Pat. No. D445,419 to Lee et al., U.S. Design Pat. No. D441,746 to Doczy et al., and U.S. Design Pat. No. D439,248 to Massaro et al., disclose designs for personal computer vertical towers. However, these patents do not provide a computer that has various toy-shaped outer housings installed over a computer mainframe and has a common interface built into both the mainframe and the housing component.
Lastly, U.S. Design Pat. No. D329,830 to Girardib and U.S. Design Pat. No. D433,467 to Tsai disclose designs for toy buses. However, these are solely toys and do not have any computer related functionality and furthermore, cannot be interfaced with a compute mainframe.
While the above-described devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a personal computer housing that has the appearance of a toy, that is capable of being interfaced with a personal computer, and provides the functionality for controlling a computer.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and improved personal computer housing that can be used to provide more child-friendly computers. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need. In this respect, the personal computer housing according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of providing child-friendly personal computers.
In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known types of personal computers for children now present in the prior art, the present invention provides an improved personal computer housing and system, and overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages and drawbacks of the prior art. As such, the general purpose of the present invention, which will be described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new and improved personal computer housing and system which has all the advantages of the prior art mentioned heretofore and many novel features that result in a personal computer that is not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even implied by the prior art, either alone or in any combination thereof.
Basically, the present invention discloses a personal computer that looks like a school bus or other toy, which uses identifiable characteristics (e.g., lights, bumpers, wheels, etc.) of the toy for computer control and status functions. The computer mainframe will connect to standard peripherals in the ordinary way, including a monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, etc. However, the computer itself will have the shape of a school bus or other toy, with various features incorporated into the unit via a combination of molded plastic and printing on the surface and added modeling details.
A CD/DVDS/FLOPPY drive tray may emerge in the luggage area on top of the vehicle or may extend underneath the grille in the bumper area of the vehicle. Optionally, the floppy drive may be above the windshield. The power supply is mounted in the rear of the vehicle with an approximately 8xc2xd-inch motherboard running along the bottom portion of the vehicle with peripheral component connectors being accessible for interfacing with the keyboard, monitor, printer, mouse, etc. All these items would typically be off-the-shelf personal computer components. The printed and molded features will include windows, steering wheel, appropriate paint color, wording (such as SCHOOL BUS), headlights, taillights, running lights, tires in wheel wells, grill, bumpers, license plate, etc. The bus-like personal computer will be approximately 20-inches long, 8-inches wide, and 8xc2xd-inches high.
To attain this, the present invention essentially comprises a common computer mainframe that is rectangular in shape and is at least two times as long as it is wide and high. This mainframe houses all the standard computer components and has an interface connector for connecting to the bus-like housing. The bus-like housing has a mating interfacing connector, so that when the housing slides over the mainframe the interface connection is completed and the computer control and status functions are transferred to various locations on the bus, such as lights, bumpers, top storage rack, etc.
The child-friendly aspects of the personal computer of the present invention will provide a break from the more boring, beige-box that is commonly associated with computers. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims attached.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated.
Numerous objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description of presently preferred, but nonetheless illustrative, embodiments of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In this respect, before explaining the current embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of descriptions and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
It is therefore an object of the present invention is to provide a new personal computer that provides in the apparatuses and methods of the prior art some of the advantages thereof, while simultaneously overcoming some of the disadvantages normally associated therewith.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a new and improved personal computer that may be easily and efficiently manufactured and marketed.
An even further object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved personal computer that has a low cost of manufacture with regard to both materials and labor, and which accordingly is then susceptible of low prices of sale to the consuming public, thereby making such equipment economically available to the buying public.
Lastly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved personal computer that will encourage a larger population of children to learn about computers and get acquainted with them prior to going to school.
These together with other objects of the invention, along with the various features of novelty that characterize the invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there is illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention.